Here's a look at "Community" Season 5, Episode 3, in which the Ass Crack Bandit runs amok at Greendale.

Basic Intergluteal Numismatics

Last week's two-part Season 5 premiere went a long way in restoring confidence that, given the return of the original writing staff, "Community" still had the potential to be the quirky, lovable comedy that its audience (small and fanatic as it may be) fell in love with. After all, this is just a show about some goofy people at a community college.

On the other side of the coin is the fact that, with the return of the original brain trust of showrunner Dan Harmon and his lieutenant Chris McKenna, we would also see more high-concept parody plotlines, which often result in the show's most divisive episodes.

WiIth "Basic Intergluteal Numismatics," we get the first of these episodes this season in a serial killer-investigation that draws heavily from movies such as "Se7en" and "Zodiac," similar in execution to Season 3's "Law & Order" parody "Basic Lupine Urology." However, there was one major difference: It wasn't very good.

In stark contrast to a season premiere that featured a masterfully written, plot-driving first episode that restored much of the series' character and a second episode that brought back the funny in a half hour that was strongly attached to the show's roots (namely, the study room), "Basic Intergluteal Numistatics" felt like the one thing it should have.

It felt like a Season 4 episode, a high-concept misfire that was trying too hard to act like "Community" instead of just being funny.

The premise is pretty simple: Someone at Greendale is going around campus and dropping quarters down people's buttcracks when they bend over. Meanwhile, the every one at the school freaks about. Antics ensue.

The biggest issue was that the episode simply did not feel as clever or original as the premiere. A large part of this had to deal with the fact that, in terms of "Community" plots, we've been here before: Annie (Alison Brie) and another character team up to try and solve a mystery in Greendale. We went there when Season 1's "The Science of Illusion" (buddy cop parody) and in the aforementioned "Basic Lupine Urology."

This time, Annie once again teams up with Jeff (Joel McHale) as they search around the campus for the culprit. And once again, they suspect Starburns (Dino Stamatopoulos) before discovering that he was innocent the whole time (although the fact that they discover he'd faked his death and is trying to build a cat car in the stables was funny touch).

The episode gives us a lot more of Annie, who was criminally underused in previous seasons, paired up with Jeff. However, we get the two dealing with their underlying sexual tension that apparently hasn't been fully resolved since it first popped up in Season 1. It's a tired plot. These characters should be growing in some direction. Instead, there's no resolution. They're both attractive people. You're telling me neither one can get a date with someone else?

Meanwhile, the rest of the cast is limited to bit parts. The return of the "Real Neil" radio show, as well as Prof. Duncan (John Oliver) we nice to see, and seeing the writing staff play with some serial killer tropes was fun, especially the press conference and the goofy letters from the culprit. On the other hand, a lot of the other bits didn't really work. Shirley (Yvette Nicole Brown) as the newly formed Greendale capitalist was fine, while Troy (Donald Glover) as the broken butt crack victim didn't really work for me. The rest of the cast wasn't given much to do.

Perhaps my qualms with this episode is a personal one. For whatever reason, I didn't find the act of dropping a quarter down people butt cracks very funny. For those who did, this episode was probably fantastic. However, the episode was simply over dark in tone, as well as lighting. (Seriously, did they really have to mess with the lighting that much to do the parody?)

Looking back, there were funny parts of this episode, especially in the early parts. However, the redundant story dragged on a little too long and the physical comedy gags just didn't hit and overshadowed everything else. Then there's this tweet:

Either the show is going all-in with the "Zodiac" unsolved ending, or their coming back to this plot. It's likely the latter.

Bleh.

Highlights

• When did we split the Gazette from the Mirror? (Greendale newspaper jokes!)

• Some nice lines when it came to the Bandit's letters: “Humans make better banks than piggies,” "He should be called the run-on sentence bandit."

• As always, the best parts of the episode occurred the character were sitting around the study hall table cracking, particularly the ones that were subtle jabs as psychological assessments of serial killers.

• Hey, look, that was Ben Folds as the professor in the greenhouse that got trashed!

• Dave Matthews Band as a major plot point: "Hardcore fans call him Dave."

• When the subject of "Dave" was broached, I was really hoping that we'd get a callback to what might be my favorite scene in the entire series, about the Barenaked Ladies: "Oh, they're BNL now. We need a shorthand for the Barenaked Ladies. That's how fundamental they are."

Then again, I might be the only one who feels that strongly about that scene.

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I'm going to deal with the Pierce revelation last, similar to how I addressed last week's shock-tag.

This was a weird way to address the passing of Chevy Chase's character, which was ingloriously written off at the end of Season 4. It was abrupt and caught me off-guard. If that was the intent of the show, then it was a complete success.

However, by the time the episode wrapped up, I had no idea what was going on. Was I supposed to be legitimately upset that Pierce died? Was I supposed to be worried about who the Ass Crack Bandit was? What there a joke in there that I missed?

It was a strange ending for a show that usually keeps its foot on the funny pedal. Very rarely does it delve into overly serious tones. Yes, it goes into deep issues, but it's usually through warm, brief touches on the flaws of each character and how they're growing past them. Very rarely does it deal with deep remorse like this.

Then again, the departure of Pierce was something that the writing staff was going to have to address eventually. I personally thought it would be something along the lines of a soft reference to his passing or a quirky look back at his life.

Instead, it was a cold, hard announcement -- and I'm not sure how I feel about it.